The Clerk of Oxenford

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VI.— THE CLERK OF OXENFORD

The comment made by the exemplary Clerk of Oxenford
upon those ribald tales of the Miller and the Reeve, is
eloquent silence. Out of the fund of his 'moral vertu' he
might, of course, have drawn a sharp rebuke or at least a
grave remonstrance, 'full of hy sentence'; but unless he
were at that time studying ' aboute som sophyme,' he con-
tented himself with silent meditation upon our old sins, so
light-heartedly exploited for the entertainment of those
whose road led to the shrine of the martyred saint. He
knew that often silence is golden and words but sounding
brass. As clearly appears in that conversation with Harry
Bailey which precedes the tale of Griselda, he himself pos-
sessed much of that gracious forbearance, which he very
nobly celebrated :

' Hoste,' quod he, ' I am under your yerde
Ye han of us, as now, the governance.'

Indeed, the argument of silence as well as that contained
in his own words, justifies us in saying that the Clerk of
Oxenford, with all his zeal for learning and righteousness,
was almost as far removed from the prig as he was from
those gay blades whom the Miller and the Reeve have
immortalized.

With ' hende Nicholas,' * in particular, Chaucer has very
deliberately contrasted his Clerk of Oxenford. The aspira-
tions of the latter were for twenty volumes of Aristotle,
which he far preferred to 'robes riche, or fithele, or gay

1 Canterbury Take, A, 3199 fl.

106

THE CLERK OF OXENFOBD 107

sautrie ' ; the former had not 6nly a chamber ' fetisly
y-dight ' but both the sautrie — with which and his ' niyrie
throte' he often beguiled the hours — and 'bookes grete and
smale,' not to speak of his astrolabe and his 'angrym stones'
on the shelf at his bed's head. The points which this sweet
clerk had in common with his grave fellow-collegian serve
only to emphasize the contrast between them. For instance,
Nicholas, though

' Of deerne love he koude, and of solas,
And thereto he was sleigh and f ul privee, '

was, ' lyk a mayden meke for to see/ — words almost iden-
tical with those with which the Host characterizes the other
clerk: 'Ye ryde as coy and stille as dooth a mayde.' To
this parallelism between the two portraits may be added
another, which raises a question that the following para-
graphs attempt to answer. Of Nicholas we read :

' And thus this sweete clerk his tyine spente
After his freendes fyndyng and his rente ' ;

of the Clerk of Oxenford :

' But al that he mighie of his frendes hente
On bokes and on lerninge he it spente.' >

The similarity of the italicized passages is noteworthy.

The lines in the General Prologue are usually interpreted
as meaning that Chaucer's Clerk was a mendicant. Skeat
says the lines contain ' an allusion to the common practice
at this period, of poor scholars in the Universities, who
wandered about the country begging, to raise money to
support them in their studies.' A very recent edition of
the Prologue repeats this in substance : ' Poor scholars
frequently gained the means of education by asking alms.' l

1 M. Bentinck Smith, Prologue and Knights Tale, Cambridge, 1908, p.
125. — Mather goes as far as to say 'Such gifts had to be begged for, and
poor scholars commonly so made their way through the Uniyersity'

108 H. S. V. JONES

Now Rashdall, the great authority on the universities of
Europe, points out that such students were by no means so
numerous as our annotators seem to imply. Although he
admits that extremely poor scholars ' were granted licenses
to beg by the Chancellor,' and that to help a scholar on a
small scale 'by giving him something at the door, in return
for a prayer or two was a recognized work of charity in the
mediaeval world,' he concludes that 'after all, as we see
from the University records, it was only a very small pro-
portion of the students in a University . . . who belonged to
the pauper or servitor class.' '

In support of this authoritative testimony is the evidence
of Anstey's Munimcnta Academica. 2 I find there only one
permit to beg. To be sure many poor scholars were doubt-
less unlicensed beggars and, of course, the regular mendicant
orders were established at Oxford. On the other hand, it
is certain that Chaucer's clerk belongs to neither of these
classes. He is a man of strict principles and regular life ;
and Chaucer has taken pains to contrast him pointedly with
a representative of the friars, whose controversies with the
seculars, fomented and kept alive by Wycliffe, constitute
a chapter of great interest in fourteenth-century church
history. The Clerk wore a courtepy that was 'ful thredbar';
of the Frere it is said :

' For he was not lyk a cloisterer,
With a thredbare cope as is a poure scoler.'

(The Prologue, etc., 1899; p. 14). Wyatt uses Skeat's note verbatim
but neglects to employ quotation marks (Prologue and Squire's Tale, Uni-
versity Tutorial Series, p. 72). Hinckley quotes from Mather an allusion
to begging students in Germany (Notes on Chaucer, p. 23). Liddell goes as
far as we can reasonably go : ' The reference is to the practice of mediaeval
students who undertook to say masses for the souls of their patrons or
their patrons' relatives in return for money given ' (Canterbury Tales, New
York, N. Y., 1901 ; p. 147).

1 Rashdall, Universities, Oxford, 1895, p. 657.

1 Rolls Series, Vol. 50, Parts 1 and 2.

THE CLERK OF OXENFORD 109

The Clerk spoke not one word more than was necessary ; but
in all the four orders there was none who had so much small
talk — ' daliaunce and fair langage ' — as this wanton friar :
and whereas the Clerk spoke in form, this wag of a friar
indulged a pretty affectation to make his English sweet upon
his tongue ; the Clerk preferred books to harps and fiddles
but the Frere was much given to harping and singing, his
roguish eyes twinkling the while like winter stars. Surely
another obvious point of contrast is, that, whereas the Frere
begged and lived high, — ' he was the beste beggere in his
hous ' — the studious Clerk took thankfully and expended on
books and learning whatsoever his friends unasked freely
gave him.

This interpretation is borne out both by Chaucer's lan-
guage and by all that we know of Oxford life in the four-
teenth century. The passage quoted from the Prologue
means only that whatsoever the Clerk might receive from
his friends he spent on books and learning, praying earnestly
afterward for the souls of his benefactors. The word hente,
which is used frequently and somewhat vaguely in Middle
English, is sometimes, but not always, as strong as the word
seize. 1 Indeed, in the very passage under consideration Skeat
glosses it, ' acquire, get ' ; and this meaning is unquestion-
ably the correct one, for the character of the Clerk would
make strongly against any other interpretation. It is not
even necessary to assume that he petitioned his friends for
assistance, although it is clear that this understanding of the
passage will not interfere at all with the present argument.
At all events, it is certain that there is nothing in Chaucer's
language to justify the conclusion that this reticent young

'See the examples cited in the N. E. D., definition 5; for instance,
Mirour Salvaeioun, 'Of some man . . . the Baptisme of watere he hent.'
The line in Chancer certainly does not mean, all that he could get by
hook or by crook.

110 H. 8. V. JONES

student, any more than ' hende Nicholas,' found it necessary
to beg from door to door.

There were, indeed, many other ways in which the im-
pecunious youth of the fourteenth century might be helped
to a university education. We may mention, for instance,
the ' chests,' described entertainingly by Anstey in his Intro-
duction to the Munimenta. These were, in a sense, the
Oxford scholarships ' of the fourteenth century. To each of
them was attached the name of the benefactor, the sum given
by him, and the object of the foundation. The University,
for its part, recompensed this charity by annual masses and
celebrations and by enjoining upon every beneficiary to recite
sixty Pater Nosters or Ave Marias for the repose of the
benefactor's soul ; that is, to pray for the souls of those who
gave them ' wherewith to scoleye.' One of the 'chests' noted
in the Munimenta was bequeathed to the University by Wil-
liam de Seltone, Canon of Wills, when Chaucer was about
twenty years old. It contained one hundred marks, and the
stipulation was made that ' all persons borrowing from this
chest shall be bound to say five times Pater Noster and Ave
Maria for the souls of the founder and of all the faithful
departed.' 2

A further occasion for the prayerful gratitude of poor
scholars appears in that custom according to which 'every
year on the day of St. Scholastica the Townsmen shall cause
mass to be said at St. Mary's church in Oxford at which
mass the Mayor and the Bailiffs and sixty of the more sub-
stantial citizens shall be bound to be present and offer at the
high altar each one penny ;, and of this sum forty pence shall,
immediately after the conclusion of the said mass, be dis-
tributed by the Proctors among the poor scholars, and the
remainder shall be given the incumbent of the said church.' 3

1 The money was, however, only lent, security being required.
'Anstey, i, p. 213. 'Anstey, i, pp. 1^4f.

THE CLERK OF OXENFOKD 111

This edict is dated in the Munimemta 1367 ; so that there was
ample opportunity for the Clerk to come within its benefits
before he went to logic and before he found himself one of
that immortal company who by a happy chance met together
in the cheerful tavern of Harry Bailey. It may be in point
here to mention, too, that generous custom of 'determining
for others ' by which the poorer students, without resorting
to beggary, were helped by their richer fellows to meet the
expenses of graduation. 1

After all, however, we need neither the ' chests ' nor St.
Scholastica's day to explain the lines which we have quoted
from the Prologue. Chaucer's Clerk of Oxenford may most
reasonably be assigned to the class of students described by
Rashdall in the following words : — ' The vast majority of
scholars were of a social position intermediate between the
highest and the very lowest — sons of knights and yeomen,
merchants, tradesmen or thrifty artisans, nephews of success-
ful ecclesiastics, or promising lads who had attracted the
notice of a neighboring Abbot or Archdeacon. So habitual
was this kind of patronage that a large proportion of Univer-
sity students must have been supported by persons other
than their parents, whether related to them or not.' 2 Is it
not most reasonable to assume that the Clerk with his quiet,
earnest ways and zeal for study was very likely to enjoy
such patronage ? No other of Chaucer's pilgrims has come
into more favor than he has enjoyed, and there have been
these who held him in such esteem that they fondly sought
to identify him with the poet himself. Certainly, it is more
seemly for us to assign him a patron than to send him beg-
ging from door to door ; especially when Chaucer's language
gives us no support for such a theory.

Is it likely, either, that a poor student who went a-begging

1 Bashdall, n, pp. 444 fi. * Rashdall, n, p. 657.

112 H. S. V. JONES

should have expended entirely on books and learning money
obtained in this way ? Eashdall says that the Clerk's aspira-
tions for an Aristotelian library represent about the maximum
that an ordinary student would expect in the matter of
books. 1 This opinion is borne out by an examination of those
interesting inventories of the goods of deceased students,
which are published in the Munimenta. These, to be sure,
fall within the century after that in which Chaucer lived ;
but we may be sure that books were no cheaper in the four-
teenth century than they were in the fifteenth. Even then,
though we find that Master T. Cooper of Brasenose Hall had
a book of homelies, two volumes of Boethius, a geometry,
and let us hope a much prized copy of the Be Remedio
Amoris, 2 and that Master Ralph Dreff of Broadgate Hall
had, for those old days, a snug little library, 3 yet these were
not poor scholars. The really indigent student was not likely
to buy many books.

II

It is not necessary to suppose that Chaucer thought of
assigning his Clerk to any particular Oxford college ; and
yet one is tempted to associate him with Merton. This
illustrious foundation would have been a congenial home
for our young student. Merton, to be sure, like the other
colleges had its troubles in these unsettled times. Brod-
rick, its historian, quotes Anthony "Wood to the effect that
six years before Chaucer was born it 'refused to admit
Northern scholars and that in 1349 several of its members
took a very active part in a riot on behalf of Wylliott, a
Southerner, driving out the Northern Proctor, and forcibly
procuring the election of Wylliott to the Chancellorship';
there is, too, an entry for 1354-5 reading 'in sagittas emptas

1 RashdaIl 1 n, p. 668. ! Anstey, n, p. 515.

' Anstey, u, p. 582.

THE CLERK OF OXENFOKD 113

el emendas pro defensione corporis Custodis,' and for 1399-
1400 an item 'pro armigero custodis.' As late as 1395
there was 'another serious tumult between North and South.'
On the whole, however, as Brodrick tells us, Merton was
especially distinguished as an ' example of industry and good
order.' To quote him further : ' It is stated that after the
sanguinary tumult on the Feast of St. Scholastica in 1354
when there was a general rustication of students to avoid
bloodshed those of Merton were specially excepted. To
young men of gentle nature and studious habits, such a home
in such a place must indeed have offered a welcome haven of
rest, however little it may have satisfied modern requirements
of amusement, or even of comfort.' ' And surely the Clerk of
Oxenford was a young man ' of gentle nature and studious
habits.'

There is, moreover, what Brodrick calls 'a leading feature
of the foundation ' at Merton, to which Chaucer may be sup-
posed to allude in his description of the Clerk. The line is,
'Ne was so worldly for to have office'; and the 'leading
feature ' is that order of Merton scholars, founded by John
Wylliott about 1380, which consisted of students who were
at the same time 'college officers, and engaged in active
business.' 2 Of course, the line which I have quoted may
have only a general significance ; but it is worth nothiug that
it fits in very well with the other suggestions that I make.

Nor should it be forgotten that one of Chaucer's friends
was a distinguished student and teacher at Merton. This was
Ralph Strode, who was born ten years later than Chaucer and
died in the same year as he. His name is linked, as everyone
knows, with that of the moral Gower in the dedication of
the Troilus and Cressida. The philosophical Strode was a

1 Brodrick, Memorials of Merton College, Oxford Historical Society, iv, p. 19.

2 Brodrick, p. 20.

8

114 H. S. V. JONES

fellow at Merton before 1360. In a discussion which accord-
ing to Strode's biographer was carried on in an ' unusually
friendly and courteous manner, 1 he opposed Wycliffe's doc-
trine of predestination, Wycliffe replying with his Bespon-
siones ad Rodolphum Strodum. We may be sure that those
subjects which were of very lively interest at fourteenth-
century Oxford and over which Strode, Wycliffe, and many
others contended — free agency versus predestination, nomi-
nalism versus realism — were of more than passing interest to
Chaucer. His ironical comment upon the attempt of the
dialecticians to define the grace of God and the responsibility
of man is to be found in the dedication of that pitiful tale of
Cressid, in which no man can untangle the threads of fate
from those of human weakness. In a very real sense, then,
Chaucer was in the controversy, although not of it; and,
whether or no the great reformer is one and the same with
the John Wycliffe of the Merton register, 2 the thoughts of
the poet certainly turned to Merton and his distinguished
friend there, 3 when he thought of those questions which are
not wholly questions of the schools, and the human values of
which he was prone to consider. And if we are to believe

1 D. N. B. — I may seem to be too much at ease with Chaucer's some-
what shadowy philosopher. I hold to Gollancz's poet-philosopher as
against J. T. T. Brown's poet and philosopher. Nor do I think Professor
Carleton's Brown's "important confirmation of Mr. Brown's belief" in
Bale's "Index" confirms it at all. The "Index" appears frequently to
repeat a name in passing from one source to another, here from Nicholas
Brigham to the Merton Catalogue. Compare among many the name of
Chaucer, four times registered. It is customary for Bale to indicate a new
writer by a capital black-letter ; the "Index" gives no such indication of
a second Badulphus. — See Brown, Note on the Question of Strode's Author-
ship of The Pearl, Publ. Mod. Lang. Assoc., 1904, pp. 146 ff.

*D. N. B., Wycliffe.

* I may mention here the conjecture of Mr. Norman Moore that Gaddes-
den, another Merton man, is the original of the ' Doctour of Phisik.'
Cf. D. N. B., Gaddesden.

THE CLEBK OF OXENFOBD 115

an interesting, although of course not conclusive note 1 in
one of the Astrolabe manuscripts, it was to Merton and
Strode that Chaucer entrusted his 'lyte Lewis,' to whom the
Treatise is so tenderly dedicated. 2

H. S. V. Jones.

1 The colophon at the end of pt. II, Paragraph 40, reads : — Explicit
tractatus de conclusionibus Astrolabi compilatus per Galfridum Chancer
ad Filium suum Lodewicum Scholareni tunc temporis Oxonie ac sub tutela
illius no'oillissimi philosophi Magistri N. Strode. Ms. Dd. 3, 53 (part2)
in the Cambridge University Library. The colophon is written 'in a
later hand' (Skeat's ed. E. E. T. S., First Series, xxix, pp. 51 and 87).
— Qollancz (J). N. B., Strode), while rejecting the interpretation here
mentioned, writes, 'although the initial before Strode' s name is usually
read " N," it might stand for " R." '

* The earlier biographers, as is well known, concluded that Chaucer was
a University man. Speght assigns him to Canterbury or Merton College,
'with John Wickelife, whose opinions in religion he much affected.' See
Hammond, Bibliographical Manual, p. 21.